As a council, we provide hundreds of services and we are building new facilities like leisure centres, care homes, and investing in schools. We have award-winning parks and Ofsted rates our social care services as good. However, like many councils, we are under tremendous financial pressure.
Local Government funding is a national issue. Many councils have needed financial help from the Government. We are not in that situation but like many councils, we need to make significant changes to our services.
Rising costs and increasing demand for some services were already putting significant pressure on many of our services. This, coupled with a substantial increase in demand for adult social care and rising costs in children’s residential care, means our costs are forecast to be £32m more than our income in 2025/26.
Adult and children’s social care are services that most of us hope we never need to use for ourselves or our families, but when they are needed, we must provide them. Not only are we required to provide them by law, but they also make the most fundamental difference to people's lives - those who need our help the most.
Working more efficiently is no longer enough to absorb the additional costs, and we cannot raise Council Tax, which funds most of our services, by more than 5 per cent without a referendum.
Over 60 per cent of your Council Tax is used to fund adult social care and children’s services, so finding more money for these services is getting harder and harder, and we cannot raise Council Tax by more than 5 per cent without a referendum.
We consulted the public in January 2025 on a range of proposals to reduce costs. You can see the public feedback in the budget consultation report, which councillors considered before making a final decision on the budget.
You can also read more about the full budget 2025-2026 proposals.